This invention relates generally to social networking, and in particular to crowdsourced advertising within a social networking system.
Electronic advertisements, such as those displayed on a web page, have become commonplace. A typical user of the World Wide Web or a social networking system can face tens or hundreds of online advertisements a day. Since a user is faced with such a large number of advertisements, a user generally does not have any personal connection with an advertisement. Additionally, users typically avoid looking at advertisements on web pages altogether. These factors tend to reduce the effectiveness of advertising a product over the Internet.
Some advertisers target ads to particular users. For example, ads can be targeted to a user based on user provided preferences or user generated data such as search terms. Advertisers can offer products related to the user provided search terms. Such targeted advertisements may anticipate a user's need better than advertisements with randomly selected content. However, targeted advertisements often fail to earn a user's trust in the advertised product. For example, the user may be skeptical of the claims made by the advertisement. Thus, targeted advertisements may not be very effective in selling an advertised product.
In one instance, advertisers can outline the benefits of a product in an online advertisement, a user may not view the advertisement long enough to understand or recognize its competitive advantages. To preserve some product differentiation, advertisers can pay endorsers such as famous athletes or movie stars to promote their products. However, users are often weary of such for-benefit promotions and discount paid endorsements. Thus, advertisers are often unable to effectively sell products associated with an advertisement.